I guess it started with the T.V., being an otaku -around my elementary days, probably between 1996-1998. There was YuYu Hakusho, Magic Knight Rayearth, Sailor Moon, Kamen Rider Black, Shaider, Turbo Rangers, Slam Dunk and Gundam Wing among others. Take note that their time-slots at that time were once a week on weekends, usually middle in the afternoon of a Saturday when we're likely to miss an episode because we're having a nap, or a mid morning/noon time-slot on a Sunday after hearing mass.
Gundam Wing had a different slot though, Mondays to Fridays at 4:30 pm, so I really had to hurry and go home from school everyday which takes me 40 minutes to travel lol.
My younger sister and I also fell in love with Japan from this moment, and would read anything in books, encyclopedias, and Microsoft Encarta about the country and its culture. We were already fans at such an age, when anime and anything Japanese were obscure in our country.
There were no mp3s, so what we did was record the Japanese OP/ED songs in a cassette tape recorder haha, omg..
We also dug up old cassette tapes that our dad had acquired from his travels and we found 2 Pizzicato Five tapes.
Those were our treasures!! ♥
＿|￣|○
Around 1999, I was in first year highschool when I first encountered the internet, anipike.com, fanfictions (of the het type), and cable tv. lololol
The latter, a luxury we didn't have at that time, but I had one or two classmates who have them.
Cable for us meant AXN, the only relevant cable channel because of anime of course.
But this year had to be one of the most relevant, because I was introduced to Knight Hunters a.k.a Weiss Kreuz which is my most beloved anime tied with Gundam Wing.
Weiss Kreuz introduced me to yaoi.
Yes, it did, the show was so obvious I had paired Omi with everyone subconsciously.
After that my mind wastainted opened, I can never remove my yaoi goggles anymore.
Heero/Relena retained immunity from it though, while re-runs of Slam Dunk had shown me the awesome pairing that is Sendoh/Rukawa, and I came to realize Kurama and his handsome suitors. （ ´∀｀）
Haha, oh the memories..
The very first manga I read, which was actually a manhwa, was also at this time. It was Demon Diary, surprisingly, it was also shonen-ai lol. We borrowed it knowing nothing about BL.
The next 2-3 years, anime really became popular in our country. I was 14-15 years old, in third year high school, when I watched hentai for the first time lololol. It was kind of a marathon with my fellow otaku classmate, with titles like La Blue Girl and Sailor Moon & the Seven Dragon Balls on top of my head.
She was also the one who introduced me to chatting, although I didn't really followed through it. I'd rather be alone reading fanfics lol.
I also was able to do conventions and learned about Comic Alley. Anime shows were being played on 3 television channels at different times of the day, everyday. One of the major TV Networks played it Mondays to Fridays at prime time, with 9 different titles regularly shown every week!
Also, Questor Magazine and Culture Crash Comics came to life.
Collecting pictures, fans, mouse pads, magazines, and cassette tapes started.
We were full pledged otakus and we were in heaven haha.
Jpop at that time for me only consisted of anime OSTs and Utada Hikaru.
Although I could have downloaded with my slow dial up internet connection, I still couldn't have because I didn't know mp3s existed lol.
I was content with just reading Gundam Wing and Weiss Kreuz fanfictions, browsing through anipike and anime shrines -which makes me nostalgic everytime I think about them. Like seriously, how many of my age had seen classic webpages of the old anime shrines? They're really different! More on comic sans, character bios and factual episode guides. They contained lots of info, and less of opinions. Snark hasn't been invented yet. Or if it is, snark wasn't cool at that time.
I don't know when my enthusiasm in anime died down, but Jpop did stay with me. And I was still loyal to reading fanfictions. I just didn't watch every anime that came out because there's no craving anymore.
Anime, became normal.
Though if there were good ones, like Hunter X Hunter, we followed it.
What caught my interest after this was Counter Strike. My favorite nickname/username 'nene' was created. I played for a while but because I just really sucked at it, I moved on to Battle Realms. We'd go to the cafe after school, and sometimes even go out on a Saturday which was unusual in our family lol, just so we could play.
This started my love for computer games. Although of course, there's Final Fantasy, Tekken, Gran Turismo and such, I enjoyed PC games more.
And we didn't have a PS console at home anyway, it wasn't allowed lol.
These were the memories of my early obsessions, from elementary to highschool.
Not only did I grew up with these 'classics', but I really obssessed with them lol.
It's nice to think back.. (^-^*)
My college years would also be posted haha.
After that my mind was
Heero/Relena retained immunity from it though, while re-runs of Slam Dunk had shown me the awesome pairing that is Sendoh/Rukawa, and I came to realize Kurama and his handsome suitors. （ ´∀｀）
Haha, oh the memories..
The very first manga I read, which was actually a manhwa, was also at this time. It was Demon Diary, surprisingly, it was also shonen-ai lol. We borrowed it knowing nothing about BL.
The next 2-3 years, anime really became popular in our country. I was 14-15 years old, in third year high school, when I watched hentai for the first time lololol. It was kind of a marathon with my fellow otaku classmate, with titles like La Blue Girl and Sailor Moon & the Seven Dragon Balls on top of my head.
She was also the one who introduced me to chatting, although I didn't really followed through it. I'd rather be alone reading fanfics lol.
I also was able to do conventions and learned about Comic Alley. Anime shows were being played on 3 television channels at different times of the day, everyday. One of the major TV Networks played it Mondays to Fridays at prime time, with 9 different titles regularly shown every week!
Also, Questor Magazine and Culture Crash Comics came to life.
Collecting pictures, fans, mouse pads, magazines, and cassette tapes started.
We were full pledged otakus and we were in heaven haha.
Jpop at that time for me only consisted of anime OSTs and Utada Hikaru.
Although I could have downloaded with my slow dial up internet connection, I still couldn't have because I didn't know mp3s existed lol.
I was content with just reading Gundam Wing and Weiss Kreuz fanfictions, browsing through anipike and anime shrines -which makes me nostalgic everytime I think about them. Like seriously, how many of my age had seen classic webpages of the old anime shrines? They're really different! More on comic sans, character bios and factual episode guides. They contained lots of info, and less of opinions. Snark hasn't been invented yet. Or if it is, snark wasn't cool at that time.
I don't know when my enthusiasm in anime died down, but Jpop did stay with me. And I was still loyal to reading fanfictions. I just didn't watch every anime that came out because there's no craving anymore.
Anime, became normal.
Though if there were good ones, like Hunter X Hunter, we followed it.
What caught my interest after this was Counter Strike. My favorite nickname/username 'nene' was created. I played for a while but because I just really sucked at it, I moved on to Battle Realms. We'd go to the cafe after school, and sometimes even go out on a Saturday which was unusual in our family lol, just so we could play.
This started my love for computer games. Although of course, there's Final Fantasy, Tekken, Gran Turismo and such, I enjoyed PC games more.
And we didn't have a PS console at home anyway, it wasn't allowed lol.
These were the memories of my early obsessions, from elementary to highschool.
Not only did I grew up with these 'classics', but I really obssessed with them lol.
It's nice to think back.. (^-^*)
My college years would also be posted haha.
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